OUR annual James McCash Scots Poetry Competition was announced on Monday.
Here is another sample from The Smeddum Test, an anthology of 10 years of the best entries to the competition (Kennedy and Boyd, £12.95). Rab Wilson's response to last year's theme, The Pleasures of Hope, draws a contemporary moral from a victory of the Picts and Scots in 832 AD. Crux decussata is the Saltire.
VEESION
Sklentin oot, ower victory's field across
Aethelstan's airmy, routit, bate an brucken,
Nou Oengus minds his wird forenenst the veesion;
Cloods that formt the shape o Andra's cross.
That eemage stounds tae us doun throu the years,
As nou we face agane stairk, vital chyces,
Nou wir nation's fortune aiblins rises?
Daur we hae thon stieve smeddum o his fieres?
Rax forrit, aiblins twa, three mair decades,
An see a Scotland walthy, bien an free!
Siccar in hersel tae bear the gree,
Destiny mappit oot - it's yours tae hae!
An syne thon day wull daw tae cast yer vote,
Yer ain crux decussata, markit 'howp'!
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article